Vatican Vendetta: A thrilling battle of power and politics

by Peter Watson

  The headmaster laughed. ‘Don’t make my job harder than it is already, Father, please. It’s bad enough trying to control children, as you can see, without trying to control their parents as well. And don’t forget this is a poor area: many mothers work in the fields with the fathers. We could never get everybody in one place at one time and to include only some would annoy those who have to be left out.’ He turned and looked at the lines. ‘I think we are ready – yes?’ he said to the headgirl, standing just behind him.

  ‘Yes sir,’ she replied. ‘Everybody is here.’

  ‘All right everybody,’ shouted the headmaster. ‘Now keep very still. This won’t take long.’ He motioned to the photographer, standing by a tripod about ten yards away. The man bent to his work.

  Just then a motorbicycle, a small scooter, could be heard approaching beyond the school wall. It came in at the school gate and across the yard towards the photographer. It was ridden by a swarthy young man in sunglasses who had something – perhaps a guitar – slung across his back. It was only when the scooter skidded to a halt just to one side of the photographer and slightly in front of him that those watching realized the object was a gun.

  Calmly, unhurriedly, the rider unslung his machine gun and fired at Vizzini. Children and teachers ran screaming in all directions. Mothers, near the wall, stumbled towards their children. The photographer picked up his tripod and made to hit the rider with it. The gunman simply fired a short burst into the photographer’s face. Then he turned back and fired a final round into Vizzini now writhing on the ground. The priest jerked, and lay still.

  Just as unhurriedly as he had arrived, the gunman swung his gun back over his shoulder, put the scooter into gear, and rode off. Behind him he left Vizzini already dead, the headmaster shot through the heart, two other teachers killed, as well as the photographer, and eleven children, including the headgirl. In her hand she still held her prize, the book on Caravaggio.

  *

  ‘David Colwyn. I am expected.’

  The guard, dressed in yellow, blue and red pantaloons, consulted a list in his glass booth. He came out again. ‘Yes. Do you know how to get to the Commission on Social Communication?’

  David shook his head; he didn’t know this part of the Vatican at all.

  ‘Very well. You go straight ahead to begin with, keeping the Holy Office here on your left, and the audience hail. Then, to your right you will see two arches; go through both of them. Ahead of you then will be the Vatican gardens and, on your left, a large building with two petrol pumps in front of it. That is where Signorina Lisle’s office is.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said David as his taxi eased forward.

  David had not counted on seeing Elizabeth Lisle again so soon. This trip had not been arranged in quite such a hurry as the last, but once again he was here at the invitation of the Vatican and once again he had no advance knowledge of what to expect. Except that he had been summoned only days after news had broken of the appalling Mafia killings in Sicily.

  The ‘Mussomeli massacre’, as it had come to be called, had shocked all Italy, all the western world. For a priest and children to be mowed down in cold blood confirmed how utterly ruthless, how savage the Mafia was prepared to be in defence of its interests. The mobsters had shown that not even children were safe when they allied themselves with the likes of Vizzini. At the priest’s funeral, to which the Pope had sent a representative, the Archbishop of Palermo had hit out at the Italian government for its lack of action. He hinted openly at what many people suspected: that several government members were on the take from the mob and so were unwilling to do anything. But the final brutality was perpetrated during the night after the priest’s funeral. In the morning it was found that the flowers had been removed from Vizzini’s grave and replaced with poppies, the source of heroin. The Mafia were reminding people why Vizzini had died so that no one would feel like following in his footsteps.

  Later that day Elizabeth Lisle had called David.

  The taxi turned in through the second arch. To his right David could see the enormous apse of St Peter’s. An entrance, looking for all the world like an opera house stage door, was open to reveal a long sloping floor up into the hidden recesses of the building. Ahead he could see the gardens, steep terracing and lush trees. The taxi pulled over to the left and stopped, as the Swiss guard had said, near to some petrol pumps. Elizabeth Lisle’s office was on the third floor and from it could be seen both St Peter’s and, over the wall, the outside world. Appropriate, David thought, for a press office.

  Elizabeth poured coffee, black as boots. She had in her office what looked to David like a Victorian relic of some sort but was in fact the latest in stylish Italian coffee makers. He put it down to her obsession with gadgets. Today she had her hair pinned up. It made her neck seem longer still. He noticed that she had pierced ears. She said, ‘He wants to do it again, Mr Colwyn. The Holy Father would like to sell another picture.’

  ‘But there’s been no disaster – has there?’ David tried to think. ‘There was that building which collapsed in France, but there weren’t many killed . . . seventeen wasn’t it? And there was that fire at the football stadium in –’

  ‘No, it’s different this time. It’s not a natural disaster His Holiness is concerned with; it’s a man-made one.’ When David showed no sign of understanding, she went on: ‘The Mussomeli massacre.’

  David whistled. ‘Thomas is willing to tangle with the Mafia?’

  ‘Someone has to. If not the Church then who shall it be?’ She sighed. ‘Thomas believes, like countless Popes before him, that the Sicilian Mafia proves that the devil is alive and living among us. He has had it in his mind to take some action ever since he was elected but this incident has spurred him to start now. It was, after all, a priest who was the main target of the attack, a priest who had shown exceptional courage and imagination in trying to battle the Mafia. Thomas feels he cannot let Vizzini down.’

  ‘What’s he going to do?’

  ‘He has several plans but for the moment, I’m afraid, they’re secret.’

  ‘And what do you want from me?’

  ‘We have chosen the picture and we would like you to sell it again. Like before.’

  ‘Which picture?’

  ‘“The Deposition”, by Caravaggio.’

  David shook his head slowly. He held his cup out. ‘I think I had better have some more coffee.’

  She lifted the jug and poured. She looked anxious. ‘You approve?’

  ‘In a purely commercial sense, yes. I know the picture and it’s fantastic, brilliant. Probably my favourite in the whole Vatican. And I think I’m right in saying that there are only sixty-odd pictures by Caravaggio, so he is very rare. His pictures simply never come on to the market. But . . . but . . . well, how is he appropriate?’

  ‘I’m not an art historian, Mr Colwyn, you know that. But what I’m told is that Caravaggio himself worked in Sicily in the years before his death and one of his late pictures, a Nativity, was actually stolen from a church in Palermo by the Mafia. In a sense, therefore, I guess Caravaggio was a victim of the mob, like Vizzini and those children. It’s also the case, as you may have read, that one of the girls killed was carrying a book about Caravaggio. She had won it as a prize only minutes before the gunman arrived. So the picture is doubly appropriate.’ The coffee was finished. Elizabeth Lisle got to her feet. ‘Why don’t we go over and look at the picture? I’ll show you the Vatican gardens and we can talk as we go.’

  They went down the stairs and out into the sunshine. A light breeze swished up the hill the Vatican was built on, easing the oppressive heat. She pointed to their left. ‘The helipad is up there, beyond the railway station and the HQ of Vatican radio.’

  They walked halfway up the hill and then turned to their right. A huge grotto-like fountain appeared on their left, its noise soothing yet pervasive. David now recognized the Vatican art gallery ahead of him but some way off. In between were a number of delightful s
haded walkways with palm trees, aralia, acanthus and a lot of plants he couldn’t put a name to.

  Elizabeth Lisle stopped and breathed in the sweet-smelling air. ‘I come here every day. This has to be one of the most beautiful, and peaceful, spots on earth. Hardly the best environment to talk money, Mr Colwyn, but I am afraid we must. How much do you think the Caravaggio is worth?’

  They moved on again. David frowned thoughtfully. ‘Probably not as much as the Raphael – but it’s difficult to know. Caravaggio has become very popular in the last ten to fifteen years. His realism suits the modern taste. He’s rare, as I said, and again, like the “Madonnna” it’s a Vatican picture.’ They were coming to the end of the shaded path. The picture gallery towered over them, with its statues of Raphael, Titian and Giotto. ‘You would certainly get twenty million – and it could go to thirty. But closer than that I can’t say.’ He wondered if he would ever get used to dealing in these sorts of figures.

  Elizabeth Lisle led the way into the art gallery. They ascended the stairs and turned into the exhibition halls themselves. The ‘Deposition’ was in the opposite row of galleries to where David had first waited for the Pope, in an octagonal room which overlooked the gardens. Light streamed in through the window as they stood in front of Caravaggio’s masterpiece. Other paintings might look dull in sunlight but not this one. The pale body of Christ was held by two very real, rather ugly and obviously poor people. The expressions were modern, not idealized as in a Raphael, and at the bottom of the picture a large slab of stone seemed to jut out at the viewer, hard and rough and real enough to touch. It was magnificent, thought David. Yes, Caravaggio was his favourite.

  There were at least half a dozen museum directors around the world who would kill for this picture and David suddenly sensed that the auction for this painting might be an even bigger tussle than for the Raphael. He turned to Elizabeth Lisle. ‘We can’t sell this before September. The art world goes on holiday from now until then. October would be better still. Does it matter?’

  ‘Well, we would like some money now, as before. Say ten million. And the rest the sooner the better. But obviously we want another successful sale and that’s up to you.’

  David nodded. ‘I think ten million is fine. Let’s go back to your office and I’ll make a couple of calls to London.’

  They walked back. She took him the long way round, via the English garden, the Fontana delle Cascatelle and the church of Santo Stefano degli Abissini. During their walk she offered to take him to L’Eau Vive for lunch. He had heard of the restaurant but had never been to it. It was French, in the Via Monterone near the Pantheon, a place where many senior cardinals liked to eat and which was sometimes referred to as the Vatican canteen. It was owned by a Catholic mission and all the waitresses, who belonged to the mission, sang a hymn during coffee.

  ‘I shall look forward to it,’ he said.

  ‘But first the Holy Father would like a quick word with you.’ She looked at her watch. ‘He’s celebrating a special mass in one of the chapels in St Peter’s in about fifteen minutes. There is a party of poor orphans from Canada here in Rome, who wanted to see him. He can never resist. I don’t know whether you know this, but he’s an orphan himself. So come, make your phone calls.’

  The first was to Lord Afton, the second to Hamilton’s bankers. Both were as supportive as David knew they would be but it was prudent of him to bring them both in at an early stage this time. Today he didn’t need to act alone and Sam Averne, his opponent on the board, could make less trouble if David could point out that he had sought advice from the chairman and the bank in advance. He didn’t want to be accused of high-handedness.

  ‘The money should be with you the day after tomorrow,’ he told Elizabeth Lisle as they walked across to the basilica.

  ‘Good. The Holy Father will be delighted. We can tell him now. This way.’ She led him into the ‘stage door’ he had noticed earlier, on his arrival. They took a passage curving upwards first to the left, then round to the right in a wide circle. ‘We are inside the wall of the apse, just here,’ Elizabeth Lisle said. ‘It was originally designed as an emergency exit, in case the seventeenth-century popes should ever face invading forces like back in 1527.’

  ‘I hope Thomas never needs it.’

  She smiled back at him and pushed at a door.

  David found himself deep inside the magnificent church. White baroque tomb sculptures, like the shapes in an underwater grotto, were all around. To the right, Bernini’s baldacchino, or canopy, rose majestically above the high altar, its twisted bronze pillars shining, deep as damson.

  ‘Thomas will be down here.’ Elizabeth Lisle led the way into the north transept. A small throng of tourists indicated where Thomas was, but they were kept back from entering the chapel where the mass was taking place. The attendant recognized Elizabeth Lisle, however, and she and David were admitted immediately.

  The service had already started. David sat and watched as, in batches of five or six, the children went forward and knelt in front of Thomas to receive communion. Standing before them, the Holy Father looked even taller than David remembered. One by one the children returned to their seats. The nun in charge tried to make them keep quiet, but they were too excited by what had just happened to them. Older people might be awed, but they were thrilled.

  Thomas, smiling and understanding the girls’ reactions instinctively, brought the service to an end, but then came forward and sat down among them. They crowded round as he asked their names and their ages. They answered tentatively at first, but with increasing confidence. One of the girls was accused by some others of exaggerating her age, to appear older than she was. ‘So she can wear make up,’ said one.

  The girl in question looked crestfallen but Thomas laughed. ‘That reminds me of a story,’ he said. ‘About when I was an orphan.’ The girls crowded in.

  ‘I was looked after by someone just like Sister Mary here. Only we had a priest, Father Flab we called him, since he was so fat.’ The girls laughed. ‘In the town where I grew up, in a very out-of-the-way place in America, we had just one movie house. There was very little television in those days – none at all in orphanages – so we loved to go to the movies. But the best movies of all, or we thought so anyway, were the horror movies which we weren’t allowed to see because we were too young. Because we couldn’t see them, we thought they had to be the best. In those days you had to be fifteen to see a horror movie. Well, as you can see, I am very tall and I was very big as a boy. Even though I was thirteen and a half, I looked fifteen. So, one day, when I had saved up my allowance, I decided to brave my way into the movie house. There was quite a line outside and I was very nervous as I got to the ticket office. What if the girl guessed I was only thirteen and turned me away? I would have been mortified with embarrassment. It was my turn to pay. I put the money in front of the girl.’ The children around Thomas were silent, gripped by his story. He opened his eyes wide. ‘The ticket girl didn’t even look at me. She took the money and pushed a blue ticket at me. I was in!’ David heard the children gasp. They knew what an achievement that was to a thirteen-year-old.

  ‘I couldn’t afford popcorn so I went straight to my seat. The lights were still on but I didn’t look round, just in case any teachers were there. Boy, was I thankful when the lights went down. Anyway, eventually the horror movie started. I don’t remember what it was about now, but I do remember that, after about twenty minutes, it got very scary. In fact, it got so scary that I started to cry! I was really frightened, scared out of my skin, so much so that I had to leave. The ticket girl was amazed to see this boy stumble out of the theatre, his eyes as red as radishes. I’ve never been to see a horror movie since.’

  The children were smiling. It was a lovely story they could repeat to all their friends. The Pope had been just like them when he was small. Thomas held out his hand to the girl who had ‘exaggerated’ her age. ‘Come, let’s all go for a walk around the church. I’ll show you some things.�
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  The girl hung on as Thomas walked out towards the main part of St Peter’s. To David, his limp didn’t seem so pronounced today.

  When he saw Elizabeth Lisle and David, Thomas stopped. ‘I’m sorry. How stupid of me. I’d forgotten you’d be waiting. Well? What do you think, Mr Colwyn? Will it work again?’

  ‘I think so, sir. Caravaggio has never been more popular.’

  ‘You’ve discussed the financial side?’

  ‘Yes, and I’ve spoken to London. No problems.’

  ‘Good, good. Thank you for coming to Rome, Mr Colwyn. We thought that, because of the Mafia link, you might not wish to be involved this time. That’s why Elizabeth had instructions not to speak about this on the telephone. Now you have agreed, I can make the announcement.’ Thomas looked down at the girl who was still clutching his hand. ‘But first I have to show this young lady a few things here in St Peter’s. She “improves” her age just as I did when I was a boy. Who knows? By the time she’s as old as I am now, she could be Pope. Or perhaps not.’ He winked and led the straggle of girls off into the nave.

  *

  ‘Does he mean it? About a woman being Pope, I mean.’

  They were in L’Eau Vive, about to tackle two large mounds of salad. Around them were off-duty cardinals, as Elizabeth Lisle put it, men in black suits, inconspicuous but for the small white collars at their throats, grey-haired men who clearly relished their food and savoured the wine in front of them. David took comfort in that. You can never trust a man who doesn’t enjoy his food.

  ‘He was exaggerating a bit, like he did about his age at the movies. But, sure, Thomas would like to see the Church change. He’s lived a large part of his life in the Third World so he knows that it’s necessary – and he’s American, never forget that. Americans like change.’